In November 2023, Shuji Itsumi, the chief operating officer of Japanese publisher Sega, had an interview with CNBC in which he revealed the company's plans to further promote its staple franchises, such as the Persona series, to mainstream audiences. One of the ways that Sega intended to do this was by bringing its intellectual properties to as many platforms as possible. The "platforms" Itsumi was referring to included not only consoles, PCs, and mobile devices, but other video games, as well. Some of the most popular games on the market, specifically the live service ones, are so big that they can practically be considered platforms in and of themselves. Because of this, Itsumi said that Sega was considering collaborating with GAAS juggernauts like Roblox to make Persona, Sonic, Yakuza, and some of its other IPs more popular.

When rumors started floating around earlier this year that the massively successful live service game Fortnite was going to receive a crossover with Persona in the near future, the franchise's fanbase grew quite excited . Fortnite was certainly no stranger to crossovers, having collaborated with all kinds of pop culture IPs in the past. As such, a Persona and Fortnite crossover seemed like a real possibility, especially due to what Shuji Itsumi said about Sega wanting to expand the reach of its franchises. So far, though, the status and legitimacy of the rumors regarding this matter currently remain unclear.

A Fortnite and Persona Collab Could Be in the Works, But Its Current Status is Unclear

Rumors About Fortnite Crossing Over With Persona Started Appearing in March

One of the first insiders to report on this rumored collaboration was a Twitter user named iFireMonkey. In March 2024, they claimed an anonymous source told them that the twenty-ninth season of Fortnite, also known as Chapter 5: Season 2, would potentially feature a Persona crossover of some kind and a new weapon called a Cerberus Shotgun, among other things. IFireMonkey added that they weren't able to independently verify these claims on their own, so they could not guarantee that everything this source told them would come true.

Even still, the reputable Sega insider Midori (who now goes by the name Ryan from the Bronx) partially corroborated iFireMonkey's report, at least in regard to the alleged Persona collaboration. He claimed that Sega and Fortnite developer Epic Games had discussions in 2022 and 2023 about bringing the Persona series to the popular battle royale game. While this report did validate the existence of this rumored crossover, it didn't provide a timeline of any sort. After Chapter 5: Season 2 came to an end in May 2024 with no Persona collaboration in sight, some began to doubt the credibility of these rumors, but another insider recently shed some light on this matter.

Sega Might Have Indefinitely Put the Rumored Fortnite and Persona Collab on Hold

In late September, the Fortnite leaker Wenso stated on Twitter that, although a Persona crossover (specifically one related to Persona 3 Reload) did exist, it had indefinitely been put on hold, according to their source. Contrary to what iFireMonkey said, this collaboration was apparently supposed to launch before the start of Chapter 5: Season 2, but it didn't and its fate is now up in the air. Both Wenso and Ryan from the Bronx claimed that Sega's purported decision to postpone the release of the Fortnite and Persona crossover had something to do with the company's Super Game initiative.

""Persona 3 is a collab that DOES exist. Although it was supposed to release a while ago (before C5S2 iirc) and it seems like it is internally on hold. (Maybe due to SEGA's mega game initiative?)" - Wenzo on September 27, 2024

The Reasoning Behind the Purported Delay May Have to Do With Sega's "Super Game"

In the last few years, Sega has been working on a mysterious "Super Game" that it plans to release in 2026. This project, which involves many of the publisher's legacy franchises, is seemingly a live service, crossover game of some sort. It's still not evident what genre this "Super Game" will even be classified as, but it looks like Sega is trying to build a platform with this title, akin to Fortnite. According to Ryan from the Bronx and Wenso, the firm might have seen the multiplayer shooter as a competitor to its "Super Game," and it presumably put the Persona collaboration on hold due to this. Regardless of whether these insiders are correct or not, it doesn't seem likely that Fortnite will cross over with the Persona series in the immediate future.

Image
persona-game-series-atlus-sega-series-franchise
Persona
Display card main info widget
Creation Year
1996
Developer(s)
Atlus, P-Studio, Arc System Works
Publisher(s)
Atlus, Deep Silver, Sega, Square Enix, NIS America
Display card main info widget end

Persona is an RPG franchise developed and published by Atlus, spun off from its larger Megami Tensei franchise. Originally releasing in 1996 under the name Revelations: Persona, the series typically follows a core group of High School students who have access to Personas, physical manifestations of a person's psyche and subconscious, to do battle in combat. Newer games in the franchise, starting with Persona 3, have introduced the idea of Social Links, which lets players further strengthen and evolve Personas based on time spent with their owners outside of dungeons.

Checkbox: control the expandable behavior of the extra info